Tell me something - why shouldn’t criminals break into a house and start shouting “police”?
I’d have thought that after a few high profile fuckups like this one and some of the others linked in this thread, this should seem like a very reasonable way of breaking into a house.
Which makes no difference, of course.
Who said anything about fool-proof?
The balance of likelihood is that the people in black uniforms saying “POLICE” (on the back, I grant you) and breaking down your door after doing all in their power to attract attention are less likely to be cleverly disguised gang-bangers than to be, well, exactly what they turned out to be. And so, as in this case, the decision to shoot first and ask questions later turned out to be a bad one.
Maybe pretending to be a SWAT team in order to steal drugs from a crack house is a common modus operandus in your part of the woods, but I would need to see a valid statistical survey comparing number of police raids vs. number of clever gangstas pretending to be cops to fool 90 year olds before I believe it. 
Look, I realize some of y’all are going to stretch for any reason, no matter how far-fetched, to blame the police for busting a drug house. And sometimes they make mistakes. But this attitude of “the police are wrong no matter what” is just as bigoted as any other blanket assumption about groups you don’t like.
Regards,
Shodan
And another thing while I’m railing on the APD. Don’t Call Me Shirley’s CNN cite mentioned that the raid was in fact “no-knock” rather than “knock-then-enter” or some other type. It further said that this type of warrent was used to prevent people from destroying evidence in drug cases.
Regards
Testy
Yea, you’re likely to be able to get data on crack houses being robbed by other dealers 'cause of course, the crack dealers inside will be quick to call and report the robbery. :rolleyes:
please note, of course, that the house in this case was not apparently a ‘crack house’, since the only drugs found was a ‘small quantity’ of marijuana
and another :rolleyes: for the ‘the police are wrong no matter what’ - which is just as much nonsense as your apparent stance of “no matter what fuckup they do, it’s ok, 'cause they were trying to bust a drug house”
There was a case in my area some years back where they’d busted in the ‘drug house’. Only it wasn’t. The drug dealer had moved out several months before, and instead, there was an elderly female minister who was undergoing chemotherapy. She was forced to lie on the floor clad only in her nightgown with the cold air from outside the open door blowing in on her while the narcotics squad shouted “shut up” to her. A minimal amount of work could have ascertained that the guy no longer lived there. but, that’s ok, ‘cause they were bustin’ in a drug house.
It sounds like the informant is full of shit. Obviously I was not involved in this particular case. But I have never see a search warrant given on the basis “someone said he bought drugs here”. Generally you get information from someone, many times from someone trying to work off a minor charge. Then at some time you take them to the location. You first search him and make sure he has no drugs on him. You give him the money. You observe him go into the house. You observe him leave. Then you take the drugs from him and place it into evidence. Then you can get a search warrant. Usually some other information is put in there like observing the house and seeing an unusual number of people going in and out. If that’s not how they do things in Atlanta then that is shitty police work.
One of the many things that the press gets wrong. That is one reason, sometimes. It is not the only reason or even the most important reason in most cases. Most judges will not grant a no-knock on this reason alone.
Fight some ignorance then. What other reasons are there?
Maybe I’m getting people’s arguments mixed up, but haven’t you made the argument that if someone is yelling “Police!” then they’re police and you should surrender, and therefore anything that happens after that point is your fault?
What’s the likeliness of a SWAT team busting into someone who’s done nothing at all wrong? Kind of evens the odds in regards to whether or not they’re legitimate police or not.
Actually, I think the opposite has been going on. People are criticizing the use of these tactics and such, but aren’t closed to the possibility that this was a legitimate use of force. On the other hand, at least two people in this thread seem to believe that the police are never wrong, and anything that goes wrong on a police raid is the citizen’s fault - even if it was a police mistake that got them there and the citizen did nothing wrong.
Presumably, officer safety.
The informant may very well be full of shit. Wouldn’t surprise me at all. OTOH, if APD had done anything close to the procedure you mention, I can’t imagine why they haven’t mentioned it. Instead of saying “So-and-so told us he bought drugs there” they’d be saying, “We know, or we saw, so-and-so buy drugs in that house.” If I’m reading the various articles correctly, it is the APD saying that the informant told them etc. etc. which makes them look very bad indeed.
The informant denies telling APD anything but my own belief is that he would say, sign, or swear-to, anything at all that got him off the hook.
Maybe the judges in Atlanta see things differently than those in your part of the country. If that is so, then maybe the authority to grant this kind of warrant should not be given to local judges.
Regards
Testy
My own thought would be that this kind of warrant would be needed for arresting murderers and the like. If I were suddenly responsible for arresting someone like Tookie Whats-is-face I’d want a no-knock warrant, surprise, and all the armed friends I could get to come along.
Sometimes this sort of thing makes sense. It just seems to make sense much more rarely than it is actually used. Using it to make sure someone doesn’t flush their stash does not seem appropriate to me.
Testy
I think that now that the investigation of the incident is being handed over to an outside agency you will not get much more information officially in the press. Even anything that might make the APD look good. Whatever the particular procedures and probable cause was for the warrant will go to the FBI and we probably won’t hear the full story until they are done.
If not to judges then who should it go to? That’s their job. If you mean it should go to a higher level of judge, I don’t agree with that either. A local judge gets to know the officers who come to him with requests for warrants. He learns if he can trust their word. If an officer lies or gives bad information to a judge he will remember that the next time and look at anything from that officer even harder.
As in any case where there are humans involved, there are nimrod judges out there. I have only been through Atlanta a few times so I don’t know the area there. Things may be different.
brownie55 I have gone over that at least twice in this thread.
You’re probably right and by the time the FBI is done everyone will have forgotten. If APD is exhonerated no one will notice and if they are found to be at fault it will be the same. Either way, all people will remember is APD shooting some old lady. Sad and possibly unfair but I would bet that is what most people remember from this.
Yes, a higher level of judge was what I had in mind. Strangely, the very thing you see as an asset of local judges (their knowledge of the officer requesting the warrant) is the thing I see as a liability. The officers are also going to know the judge. They’ll know which ones will give them a hard time about issuing a no-knock and which ones will just sign the thing.
If all is as it appears in this case, it would seem that some judge granted a no-knock warrant on extremely flimsy evidence. At least the evidence that has been made public so far does not seem adequate for this kind of warrant.
On another aspect. If this turns out to have been an enormous mistake, the officers involved will probably receive some kind of punishment. What about the judge? Where are the checks-and-balances at that level?
Regards
Testy
Found this while looking for the above: Cops raid the wrong house twice in 20 minutes!
But - but - in the second raid they had the correct house for the person that they were looking for (Durrell Jones). OK, so he didn’t have anything to do with the shooting that they were investigating :smack:, so he wasn’t the right suspect, but the second raid wasn’t the wrong house. How dare you impugn the po-po!
Two things I liked about your linked story:
[ul]
[li]Sarasota Police Officer Bo Potter was the voice of reason at both raids (presumably he wasn’t actually taking part in the second one, but was still in the vicinity from the first). He was able to defuse the situation because he knew his local community. Of course it’s pure luck that he had coached the Jones brothers at football and remembered them, but I find it hard not to see this story as showcasing the different merits of the “community-sensitive police force” model vs the “paramilitary” model. I hope that somebody treated Officer Potter to beer and pizza – at minimum – afterwards.[/li][li]After the “door-kicking-in” first raid and “barging in” second raid (presumably the door was no longer a deterrence to entry at that point…) at the Jones house, the real perp was apprehended next door (#2548) after the deputies knocked (and there’s no mention of doors being kicked in). I guess that they were lucky that he didn’t notice the noise at #2552 and sneak away…[/li][/ul]
Although you are being fair, I have to actually say that the failure to get a written statement from this informant, prior to the request for a warrant, is really shoddy police work. The credibility of the officers involved have really went down if this is all true and they do not have a signed statement that was presented for the warrant.
The judge, would likely have not asked to see the statement, they tend to take police at their word, but this is very, very bad , IMHO, if they got a warrant without having a statement.
Lissa
Thank you. I value the police and have a desire to be fair to them. OTOH, I really dislike the present trend toward militarization and no-knock or knock-then-enter warrants. (As an OBTW, the difference between these two warrants seems to be close to nil.) Make no bones about it, I want to see this kind of warrant and these tactics reserved for situations where nothing else will do and am concerned that they are becoming more of a default.
I guess that ties in with my complaint and is the reason I mentioned to Loach that the authority to grant such warrants might be better controlled by a higher level of judge.
Both you and Loach have mentioned that the APD seems to have obtained a warrant in a very poor and sloppy manner. Judging by what y’all say and by the police not finding the crack, I’d have to agree. Nevertheless, and sloppy or not, the APD did obtain a no-knock warrant for the old lady’s house, called-out their SWAT team, and then screwed-up by the numbers.
This is one of the reasons I’d like to see fewer of these warrants and fewer police running around with automatic weapons wearing ninja suits. From a personal standpoint, I can put myself in the place of that old lady and it could very easily be me at room temperature now instead of her. From more of a community standpoint, the police win few friends when they use these kinds of tactics and they could use all the friends they can get right now.
I suppose it’s a moot point now. The whole thing has been turned over to the FBI and they will hardly say “Good Morning” without a court order.
Regards
Testy
If I heard correctly on that last linked video, the police said they observed the informant make the buy earlier in the day. So shouldn’t there be some notes and evidence from then? I wouldn’t really expect the informant to back up the police’s story in this case…I’d expect him to lie. Not that’s it’s going to help him with either community.
Kittenblue
Loach gave a short summary on correct procedure a page or so back and this is what he said the APD should have done. Basically, searched the guy, sent him in, waited for him to come out with the dope and then entered it into evidence. I haven’t seen the video but if they DID this then why is there any question at all about whether crack was in the old lady’s house? It would also seem that the informant wouldn’t have a leg to stand on with this crap about never being in the house, never buying drugs there, etc.
It would seem that something is very strange here. Not to be too “tinfoil-hatt-ish” about the matter, but it would seem that the APD could have simply mentioned this after they shot the old lady rather than gone through all this crap. It would have saved a lot of embarrasment on their part.
Regards
Testy
The judges really shouldn’t be taking ‘police at their word.’ The judges are supposed to be fair and impartial and protect the rights of the citizens. If they just take the cops’ word for it, then there doesn’t need to be any evidence at all that someone committed a crime for the cops to get a warrant on their house.
All that has to happen is that the cops have to say there is. Doesn’t say much for the legal system.
Wasn’t that a buy from someone who claimed he lived in the house, but the buy did not actually take place in the house they raided?
Good thing judges can just take their word for it!
I mean their informant’s dealer said so. Why shouldn’t a judge treat it as absolute fact once a cop repeats it?
IOW, you pulled the assumption that other dealers often break into a house by dressing up like a SWAT team and shouting loudly before busting down the door out of an orifice more known as an egress. Fair enough.
The first part is actually fairly close, except that you left out the part where I said the likelihood is greater that it is the police shouting “POLICE!” and breaking down your door dressed in SWAT uniforms and attracting a lot of attention rather than cleverly disguised criminals. The part about how everything that happens afterward if you don’t is something you made up. What I said was that if you shoot at the police in the course of them carrying out their duties, I will fail to fall to pieces weeping over your corpse.
Don’t shoot at the police. This is really so hard to understand?
You forgot the part where everyone who does notice cries that there was a cover-up.
Regards,
Shodan